Right As Rain

Helen Schneider | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 7, 1995)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B0000033PJ
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #239,472 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. My Ship

2. Send in the Clowns

3. Some Cats Know

4. I've Got the World on a String

5. Get Out of Town

6. I Was So Young (You Were So Beautiful)

7. I Had Myself a True Love

8. Over the Rainbow

9. Right as the Rain

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Reviewers Are Right!!!, December 11, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Right As Rain (Audio CD)

After listening to the CD Right as the Rain, I find the comments from Jazz Times' reviewer Patricia Myers very accurate: "this vocalist not only possesses an incredible range but exquisite taste. A popular European rock singer and actress, this Brooklyn born musical chameleon has opened the great American songbook for lyrics that showcase her style, sophistication and sensitivity. She's teamed up with Bob Brookmeyer, who wrote all but two of the charts, conducted the 19 piece WDR Big Band and contributed trombone and piano riffs. The music of Gershwin, Sondheim, Arlen, Porter and Mercer is sung with rarely heard verse. `My Ship' becomes a lovingly languid voyage that sails on to a lush rendition of `Send in the Clowns' that rivals Sarah Vaughn's. Schneider is boldly confident on Arlen's `I've got the World on a String', petulantly playful on Porter's `Get out of Town'. The pinnacle of the nine tracks is `Over the Rainbow', a gorgeous arrangement by Brookmeyer protégé Maria Schneider that springboards Helen Schneider to her apex. This is an album with appeal for jazz fans and everyone else who values quality music."

Also, another view from the music publication Billboard states it well: "Helen Schneider...was a 70's pioneer in the resurgence of cabaret. There are ample reasons here why she remains a superior vocalist in this genre. In a wonderfully programmed set of rarely heard songs by the masters - including the Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer title song - she imaginatively explores them, with conductor/jazzman Bob Brookmeyer and German ensemble the WDR Big Band behind her. As close as you can get to pop/art song performances."

Enjoy...

5 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Style over substance, January 30, 2000

By 

Conrad Horn - See all my reviews

This review is from: Right As Rain (Audio CD)

Helen Schneider may not be the worst female singer I've ever heard, but she's FAR AND AWAY the most irritating. I don't know what her voice really can sound like, because she changes it every ten seconds. In the space of ONE LINE of "Some Cats Know" (ugh) she changes volume drastically, inserts a glissando on one word, and squeals or hiccoughs (shades of Theresa Brewer) at the end. She likes to shout lines, pretty much when she feels like it, and she also favors the occasional breathy patch, as well as staccato enunciation of a series of words. She sounds like a contestant in the Miss America contest. She isn't singing in the true sense of the word, she's (in the words of the pool player in that TV ad a while back) "just showin' off." Her Lotte Lenya album is equally histrionic, and there she even manages to obscure the words (so sorry, Mr. Weill). I got stung on this one and am sending it back, even if I don't get a refund. I don't want anyone to see it and think I like it, and I wouldn't give it to my worst enemy. This is phony New York "caberet" singing at its very worst. Hear June Christy, Chris Connor, Vivian Lord, Frances Faye, Peggy Lee, Lisa Kirk, Delores Gray, even Edye Gorme, who is better than this. . It's obscene to compare this woman, as one listener did, to the best of all, Betty Buckley, who can bring tears to your eyes with her real emotion and the sheer beauty of her voice. It may be entertaining for a nightclub patron, half in the bag and with no appreciation for good singing at all, to watch this woman pull out all the stops and throw every imaginable singing trick at the audience, but don't put her on a record.